Data from the 'Collectio Rerum Ecclesiasticarum' from the year 1842.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

Data from the 'Collectio Rerum Ecclesiasticarum' from the year 1842.

The place: DRAX.     Church dedication: PATRON SAINT NOT KNOWN.     Church type: Discharged Vicarage.

ST. PETER. -Area, 7,490 acres. Barkston Ash wapentake, L. D. -Population. 1,032 *1; Church-room, 300 *2; Net value, £81. -Mr. Torre gives a long and particular account of the grant of land in this parish and elsewhere to the Abbey of Drax.

There were in this town with its members three carucates of land and a half, held by the Paganells, who held the Soke of Drax of the King in capite, and which temp. Edw. III. descended to Sir John Fulnetty, and from him to the Poucheys.

Drax was valued at £52. 12s. six hens and 200 eggs, and paid 121 pence to the sheriff for fines of the county, tithing, and wapentake.

Torre also gives the particulars of an inquisition taken at York, 53d Hen. III. touching the Soke of Newland, which are curious.

This Church was appropriated to Drax Priory, Kal. April 1315, having been given thereto by William Paganell. And on 14th KaL Julij, ann. 6 Pont. Celestenet Papae, was by the Pope's Bull confirmed to them, appointing that they might retain it in their own hands, making choice of a fit chaplain, who should satisfy the Diocesan in spirituals and the Pope in temporals; and on 4th Id. April 1315, Friar Thomas de Cawode was admitted to the cure without any ordination, the parish Church being not distant above half a league from the monastery.

Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The Crown has the impropriation.

Archbishop Sharp was of opinion there had been some endowment to the Vicarage, as His Grace says both Procurations and Synodals are payable, though not so stated in Bacon.

There is a pension from the Crown of £6. 13s. 4d. per annum.

This Church was held as a Curacy from the reign of King Edward VI. to the year 1778, when the Rev. Joseph Fisher was instituted Vicar.

Torre gives a close catalogue of the Vicars to 1552.

In Pope Nicholas's Taxation the Church is valued at £23. 6s. 8d. and the Vicarage is valued in the King's books at £4 per annum. Augmented in 1775 with £200, in 1786 with £200, in 1810 from the Parliamentary grant with £200. In 1813 with £200, and in 1814 from the Parliamentary grant with £1,400 -all by lot.

In the Parliamentary Survey, vol. xviii. page 235, it is stated as follows: " Neither parsonage nor Vicarage. One Mr. Thomas Smith is minister, who has only £3. 16s. 8d. for his maintenance, formerly given to that use, besides the people's benevolence. He bath an augmentation granted him by order of Parliament of £50 per annum, out of the Prebend of Ulleskelfe, and never but one fifty paid, and now it is utterly denied, the said Prebend being said to be purchased by Colonel Parsons. We recommend that the village of New Hay being two miles distant, the river of Ouse running betwixt Drax and it, which makes the passage very ill, be annexed to the parish of Henningbro', being but a quarter of a mile from thence."

Guy Taylor, of Newland, gent. by will, proved 20th October 1626, bequeathed for ever to the Preacher of Drax Church £3. 6s. 8d. yearly out of his three closes called Chapman Flatts and Bowlands. -Torre's MS. page 110.

There was an unreported decree in the Exchequer, in Trinity Term, 33rd Chas. II.

Inclosure Acts were passed in the 13th Geo. III. and the 39th and 40th Geo. III.

The glebe house is unfit for residence.

19th May 1792, a faculty was granted to recast three of the bells into five smaller ones.

The Register Books commence in 1597. The entries of marriages very defective till 1697, and those of burials are very imperfect from 1693 to 1716.

Charities:
Charles Read's school and alms-houses, founded by will, dated 30th July 1669. Lands purchased with £2,000 for education of the children of the inhabitants of Drax gratis, in reading, writing, and accounts, and also in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, or otherwise, as occasion should require; and for six poor aged people, and for six poor boys. Six trustees of the parish of Drax, and special visitors the lord mayor and aldermen of York. The Commissioners had no power under the Act to inquire into this charity, there being no special order.

Edward Atkinson's charity, by will, dated 1st May 1719. Rent of six acres of land, for teaching poor children of Camblesford. -Vide 21st Report, page 598.

Drax Abbey was situate within this parish.

Post town: Snaith.

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References:
Vid. Torre's MS. page 107. Abp. Sharp's MS. vol. i. page 85. Burton's Mon., page 100.

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Notes:
*1 Viz. Camblesforth, 260; Drax 350; Long Drax, 140; Newland, 282.

*2 Estimated in 1818 at 500 or 600.